Common Objection 3: Modern worship is too complex for the average congregant.
Issue 3
But is it though? I hear this objection occasionally and I wonder how much thought is being put into it. If the average congregant today were to look through a psalter or hymnal, eyes would glaze over and likely thanks would be expressed that in these modern times, the band does all the work. If we’re honest with ourselves, singing psalms and hymns in the original styles is not simple at all. In fact, I’d like to put forward the idea that it’s way more complicated than your average hit piece from Hillsong.
Unfortunately, this is a rather subjective topic, and because it is subjective, many people tend to justify the current state of affairs due to the lack of concrete, specific, and objective evidence that it’s wrong. However, only avoiding those things specifically prohibited by God is not a biblical way of living in any field, especially that of worship before the Lord. In Leviticus 10 when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, they were properly executing the normative principle of worship—which is the idea that if God didn’t say anything about it, we can do it. God hadn’t said anything about it, and because they had the audacity to worship Him in a way that He had not laid out for them, the Lord offered His own fire and consumed them.
Therefore, as we think through what we are and are not allowed to do in corporate worship, all our warning flags and red lights should come up when we hear a certain viewpoint being defended because it’s not specifically prohibited in Scripture.
The industry of Christian music production is not built upon whether the piece is simple for congregations to sing. Instead, it is professionally designed to produce a certain positive feeling within the audience resulting in a desire to keep listening even after the song ends. This is marketing at the most basic level. If the clients who bought your product the first time were impressed enough to buy it a second time, and if your method of making food appear on the table depends on whether or not they buy it a third time, you are highly incentivized to tailor your work to what the market demands. And as it turns out, the most common use of modern worship music is in non-church worship related settings. Modern worship songs are played 24/7 on hundreds of radio stations and TV channels across the nation as well as on thousands of personal devices of every sort, and their high point comes in the form of music videos on YouTube or concerts held across the nation. Therefore, producers are not primarily concerned about how their music will translate to a church worship setting. Their first and last question is “will it sell?”
Selling music is not evil, and selling Christian music is certainly not evil if it’s theologically correct (the vast majority is not, but for now that’s beside the point). The problem lies with the expectation that what we do outside the church is appropriate for corporate worship. We do not execute corporate worship by having a feast (1 Corinthians 11:22) or by sorting onions or by making phone calls or by doing business or by playing ragtime or by listening to theologically sound Christian music on the radio. These are all acts of worship outside the corporate worship setting, and they should all give glory to God. But they have no place in ordered worship in the presence of God with the gathered body of Christ.
Since we have lost the vision of what corporate worship is, our congregations and worship leaders now wrongfully equate singing in corporate worship to listening to someone else playing music on the radio which we sing along to. The original mistake begins with assuming that nothing of significance happens during the singing portion on Sunday morning aside from music occurring. And when we hear music labeled as Christian occurring in our daily lives, we naively think to ourselves “why not do that at church”? After all, it’s catchy and it gets me excited. Why not?
So the band, having noticed this, seeks to pander to the congregation’s spoiled appetite. But first, making the transition from the radio to church on Sunday morning requires some slight modifications. On the one hand, the average church does not possess the musical range in its band that a million-dollar music industry does. On the other hand, the music is indeed rather complicated for the average congregant who might know the gist of the song but can’t realistically sing all of the stylized additions like trills and grace notes and the blending of two notes. It’s not impossible to accomplish, but the average person would need motivation and time to practice. And let’s be real. It’s 2024—practice is for the band on Thursday nights. So the church band translates the hit piece to fit their own musical ability, leading to a simplified version that hopefully sounds almost like it does on the radio.
For average congregations, the result is, in fact, quite simple. The primary reason for the complexity of the original piece was all of the stylistic additions of the lead singer and the vocals and the background instruments. But strip these away and you are left with a very plain one-size-fits-all worship song. And this is when some of us discover that one-size-fits-all doesn’t look that great. Oftentimes, the original key of the song is set very high—in the range of a professional singer—and though churches will usually transpose it down to a different key, the one-size-fits-all approach is still painfully obvious. There is one melody line (the main tune), and maybe a vague alto line for the accompaniment. Aside from that, men and women alike are now required to sing the same thing—stretch their voices, transpose down a full octave, or not participate. Some folks with more musical ability (through no accomplishment of the band whatsoever) will pick out or make up tenor or bass or alto parts to better fit their range. But the ironic problem is still there—the music is too complicated to be sung by average bands and congregations, and at the same time it is too simple to be sung well by congregations due to the lack of vocal range. It is a house containing one window and so many curtains and frills that the existence of a window in the first place can be legitimately questioned.
One of the reasons that the modern style of a worship band leading the congregation became popular is that the congregation did not have to work nearly as hard to make the music—in other words, it’s far less complicated than your average hymn. Today, no musical studies are necessary, no tonal literacy is required, and not even an effort to participate is essential to the outcome: in the end, the point of the song was to sound like the radio version, and there weren’t nearly so many vocals on the radio version anyway.
Taking a look at the average hymn, especially ones composed over 150 years ago, it becomes obvious that the musical standard of our day is outrageously low by comparison. Four-part harmonies and odd rhythms (in the case of the Genevan psalter) are the entry level, not to mention different parts coming in and out to produce a fuging tune. When the old style hymn is compared with the new contemporary worship song, there’s not even a competition. Hymns are vastly more complex from a musical standpoint, if for no other reason than what they expect the congregation to sing. While it is assumed that the melody line is known by all participants, there are usually three other parts: alto, tenor, and bass, all of which are designed for various vocal ranges. While singing a part in a hymn, not only is the congregant required to know his own tune, but he is also required to know the melody and the distance between his part and the melody. This way if the melody isn’t exactly in the key written in the hymnal, he has the ability to transpose. Furthermore, sometimes having an awareness to what the other two parts are doing is also required to keep oneself on track. This is especially true in a fuging tune. This style of music may be likened to a house with many windows framed with complex architecture—but with few if any curtains. In fact, I have heard complaints from the contemporary crowd that there are not enough curtains. This makes sense, given they live in a house where you can’t see the window because of the curtains.
I have primarily focused on the musical style rather than the lyrics because it’s a more difficult subject to tackle. The depth of our modern worship lyrics doesn’t even compare to 99% of what you’ll find composed during the couple hundred years after the time of the protestant reformation. I don’t think this should be very controversial given the mindless repetitive nature of modern worship songs—they tend to find a catchy line and stick with it, which is probably for the best given the theological depth of modern composers.
People have told me that the older hymns are outdated and that most folks “wouldn’t understand” the meaning of the old words, and that, furthermore, if you were to introduce such songs today, it would be sinful to not break down and explain the song to the congregation beforehand in modern parlance so that they knew what they were singing. But generally speaking, people are not stupid. Some certainly are, but these special cases should not be the metric by which the rest of the congregation is limited. It has been my experience that Christians who are zealous for seeking out the ways of God are the same types of people who would figure such things out on their own with no prodding or lengthy explanations. And by their zeal, they will inspire their fellow congregants. Therefore, if the entire congregation needs spoon fed such things, you do not in fact have a simple problem of the music being too complicated.
God did not create a simple world. He made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that dwell therein. And not all at once—He stretched His work of creation out over several days before charging Adam and his wife to go out into this world and do the same thing in their own way by modeling His creativity. And for six thousand years we have been trying to wrap our heads around His creation. We still haven’t gotten to the bottom of God’s creativity. He has made an incredibly complex and sophisticated world, and for what purpose? To give Him glory and honor. Complexity in God’s creation is a wonderful thing, and much ink is spilled in the Psalms rendering praise to this fact.
Therefore, we should not spurn the creating of our own complex and beautiful things which take skill to produce. In fact, this is what God has called us to do by way of the creation mandate. We are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, ruling over it and creating things in it by following the example God laid out for us during the week in which the earth was created. To say that God is honored when we strive for musical excellence and complexity in just the same way as when we do nothing of the sort is a pietistic lie from the pit of Hell. Is this a little strong? Think about it—what fallen angelic being is doing his level best to reduce the amount of glory God receives from His people? And where will this being’s eternal dwelling be? Shall we join forces with him by relativizing corporate worship to our Almighty King?
No, we must be skillful, striving for excellence in everything we accomplish, especially including our worship to the Lord. King David was praised by Saul’s men for being a skillful musician. And then they referenced his valor, his prudence in speech, and his good looks (1 Samuel 16:18). In 1 Chronicles 15:22 we are introduced to a man named Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, who was in charge of the singing. It was his job because he was really good at it. Other instances of the skilled worship of men being lauded can be found in 1 Chronicles 25:4-7, 2 Chronicles 34:12, and Psalm 47:7. Clearly, we have a worthy goal to strive for. So don’t let them tell you it’s the thought that counts.
In early January of 2024, a YouTube producer revealed that he had programmed an AI to compose a modern worship song. He began by instructing it to produce lyrics, and this was quite revealing in itself. There were some slightly odd turns of phrase here and there, but all around it sounded just like the evangelical feel-good fluffy encouragement with no theological grounding typical of contemporary worship producers.
Next was the task of creating some simple chord lines, which was not difficult given the lack of complexity in this area as well. He incorporated some stock drum beats and background ambiance and then recorded himself singing the lyrics the AI had generated. The final twist was to add some live audience sound effects, to include clapping and cheering.
It was all quite convincing. He published the recording on several music platforms, and it did decently well in terms of numbers—better than anything he had composed on his own, which wasn’t very flattering, but it was interesting. Then the number of listens exploded. It seemed as though it was becoming a hit. People were commenting about how much they loved the lyrics. Out of curiosity, he submitted the song for review at CCLI so that it could be used in churches—and it got approved. This is not to say that people are stupid (though some certainly are), but it is to say that our level of theological, musical, and Biblical literacy has descended to such a point that we cannot differentiate between the work of the image of God and a computer program—primarily because the work produced by the image of God is just that lame.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the AI failed utterly when the YouTuber attempted the same procedure to create a hymn. The AI could not develop anything like convincing lyrics or music. In attempting to model the complexity and depth of a hymn, the AI was only able to stitch together bigger words than it had for the contemporary song. The result made no grammatical or practical sense, but neither did the contemporary version. So why was it convincing? Simply because it was realistic. If one were to read contemporary worship song lyrics by themselves without music, they would make little to no sense. But for the average radio consumer, not much attention is paid to whether the lyrics make sense as long as they sound good.
Hopefully the case has been made here that psalms and hymns set to the metered 4-part harmonies are in fact far more complicated both in their musical style and in their theological depth than your average piece broadcast on what is called Christian radio. And this is a good thing—God is honored when we work hard to produce good music for His glory. Doing so is a worthy pursuit to which we are called, and we should not be surprised when we find it difficult to accomplish.